I have a sneaking suspicion this wasn’t exactly what Whistler-Blackcomb had in mind for the opening week of their new, state of the art Peak-2-Peak gondola. Realizing one of the greatest fears of any human being who has ever hopped onto a ski lift or gondola of any kind, a tower of the Excalibur Gondola (not the new peak-2-peak), near the base of Blackcomb Mountain, snapped in half Tuesday afternoon in the middle of operation hours.

For reasons that have yet to be determined, a tower near the bottom of the Excalibur, which carries skiers and snowboarders to the top of Blackcomb Mountain from Whistler Village, simply snapped in half and left 50 passengers in need of rescue. Ten people have been injured, though according to Whistler RCMP Sgt. Steve Wright, none of the injuries were life threatening.

These types of things rarely happen. But when they do, they kind of make you scratch your head a bit and realize that shit like this can actually take place. The new Peak-2-Peak gondola that was just opened hang as high as 1427 ft. in the air at some points. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for error. I should as hell wouldn’t want to fall 1427 ft. in a gondola.

So while it’s a very positive thing that no one was seriously injured in this mishap, hopefully this will go down as just an isolated, unfortunate accident. With Winter Olympics heading for Whistler in 2010, this isn’t exactly the type of story they want in the headlines.

Tags: Whistler

Posted by Shaun on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 in Snow.

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